


Close Neighbors

by pherryt



Series: SPN ABO Bingo [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha!Dean, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, SPN A/B/O Bingo, Wolves, a/b/0 dynamics, implied past alpha/alpha, omega!cas, weres, wolf packs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 15:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11970639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: Dean and Castiel hated each other - or maybe they didn't. Cas wasn't sure anymore. All he knew was that at every full moon gather of the packs, he and Dean seemed to seek each other out just to rehash the same old arguments over and over again.





	Close Neighbors

**Author's Note:**

> Ah....this could have filled several different squares and it was so hard to pick! But here you go. Enemies to Lovers square on my bingo card! 
> 
> Also, for this story (the first like this i've written), these guys shift to full human or full wolf. no in between stuff. 
> 
> Anyway, I'm hoping to write a couple more shorts for this set, so keep an eye out. :D

The Shurley Pack and the Winchester Pack were fighting again. It wasn’t for the reasons you’d think. It wasn’t for territory or for slight or – even worse – some sort of generations old vendetta whose cause was lost in the mists of time.

“Family don’t end in blood,” Dean growled firmly a the black furred wolf standing before him with his hackles raised. “Uncle Bobby says so.”

“The bonds of blood are stronger,” Cas sniffed back disdainfully at the mottled brown wolf before him. “Everyone knows that _and_ Bobby’s not even your uncle, so it’s complete propaganda.”

“Your brothers are dicks, Cas…how does that even fit your beliefs?”

“They’re not dicks to _me_ Dean.” Well, that much was a lie and everyone in the argument and around them knew it. “I’m _family._ Therefore, I believe I’ve more than adequately proved my point.” Cas turned his back on Dean and stalked away.

From the other side of the clearing, John Winchester and Chuck Shurley watched the two adolescent pups stalk away from each other and shook their heads. Nearly the same scene had played out between the boys at every gathering of the packs for years now and no one could remember how or why it had started.

The rest of the packs mingled, though most of Chucks’ pups stuck to themselves, noses in the air, snubbing the rest of the gathering. Chuck sighed. He had no idea how he’d failed as a parent, how he’d failed as an Alpha to one of the largest packs in Kansas. This superiority over others had not been how Chuck had raised them and now it looked as if Cas and Dean – who had once been the best of childhood friends – would never heal whatever rift had come between them.

John nudged Chuck, breaking him out of his morose thoughts, and knocked their shoulders together, getting Chuck to look back to their sons who – despite their argument – seemed to still be gravitating toward each other, stuck in the others orbit as clearly as the moon orbited the earth.

“He’ll come around, Charles,” John said sagely. “Cas has too much sense not to.”

“If there’s one thing I know about my pups, John,” Chuck sighed again, despondently, “Is that they’re stubborn as hell, and once their minds are made up…” Chuck didn’t have to bother finishing the sentence, staring pointedly at his older sons, all but one who were a disappointment to him. And he was still uncertain about Gabriel.

“It’ll be fine. Well, Cas’ll be fine. And even Gabriel’s not that bad,” John reminded him. “Naomi’s gone, Chuck, and you know it was her attitude, her influence that led your boys down this path and she doesn’t hold that over Cas any more. He’s got time to change, to remember who he once was. Don’t give up.”

“I still can’t believe she tried to take my pack away from me,” Chuck muttered, settling down, resting his muzzle on his paws. “How’d I miss all the signs?”

“We’re not all perfect Alphas,” John said. Chuck snorted at that, rolling his eyes at Johns choice of words. “At least we stopped her. Take heart. We’ll see you next full moon.” John stood, howled and then shifted, his naked body raising to stand above the mass of fur around him. His pack started gathering about him, Sam reluctantly tearing himself away from a tawny, golden furred wolf who – if John was not mistaken – was actually Gabriel. He smiled inwardly. Chuck had more good eggs than he thought.

Sam trotted over to nudge his brother who was too busy staring at Cas wistfully to respond to their fathers’ call. After a short scuffle between the brothers, they joined the rest of the pack arranged around John. It was a small pack, compared to the others at the gathering, but it was very tightly knit and John restrained another smile as he caught Cas staring at them, longing clear in his eyes.

Bidding the other packs farewell, the Winchesters, as one, shifted and walked stark naked to the edge of the clearing where their clothing had been dropped when they arrived. Dean didn’t notice -but of course, his father did – how a certain, black furred wolf with bright blue eyes watched him leave very, very intently.

John didn’t think Cas and Dean would remain at odds like this for too much longer.

The next pack gathering and the next after that all seemed to go about the same. Dean and Cas snarked at each other, growled, sniped and fought and broke apart all as usual, but always they stayed close to each other. Not touching, not talking, but always within sight or sound of the other, always aware.

Dean presented as an Alpha as had been expected before the gathering after that one and the tone of their fighting seemed to change slightly. Cas became skittish, uncertain, as if afraid to antagonize the new Alpha. But Dean was still Dean and Cas quickly relaxed into their familiar fighting thought it was something he enjoyed less with each repetition outside of it being his only opportunity to see Dean. Cas found himself wondering and questioning his stance on the Winchester Pack, on Dean. It was something that had been niggling at him for some time now and was something he worried about increasingly in the days leading up to each gathering.

Why did he have such a problem with Dean?

It was when Cas presented as an Omega several gatherings after Dean’s first as an Alpha that he found his entire world off kilter in ways he never expected. He was the first male omega for whole generations in his pack and while his father claimed it made him special, nearly all his brothers turned on him.

It wasn’t obvious at first, but the more time passed, the more he realized what was going on. The more he realized they saw him as no better than one of _those Winchester mongrels_. The more he realized how wrong he’d always been. With the lingering scent of his heat on his skin and fur, Cas looked toward the next gathering more than he had for some time – but he also dreaded it.

He couldn’t wait to get away from his brothers, their cutting and degrading remarks, their sudden slights and exclusions and tricks. When they weren’t ditching Cas, they were torturing him.

But what if when he got to the gathering he discovered that other packs felt the same as the older Shurley’s did?

When the time came, Cas slinked along at the back of the pack, ears and tail drooping as hope and dread pooled and mixed in his stomach. He didn’t mingle with the others right away. For the first time, he sat apart, watching and observing closely and becoming more aware of the Alpha’s and Omega’s in the different packs than he ever had been before.

What he saw surprised him. He blinked particularly hard as he watched the Winchester Pack interacting, feeling as if his eyes had opened for the first time in years. Since before Naomi, his mother, had been chased out of the pack for an attempted coup.

Cas had known them all - all the packs, not just the Winchesters - for a long time but he’d never really bothered to take the time and notice things like their designations. (aside from Dean. But that was different. Don’t ask him why. Dean just was!) As pups, they literally had not cared and sometimes Cas didn’t feel like he was all that far off from being just a pup still, despite his changing body.

So when he suddenly realized that the pack Alpha of the Winchester pack was not the traditional Alpha but an Omega, Cas was left stunned.

How had he never noticed anything that important, that…different? Was that the real reason why his mother tried to discourage his friendship with Dean? Because she hadn’t approved? His mother had been an Alpha herself, her mating with Chuck had been unconventional and she’d often talked down upon him, and his close friendship with their allies, the Winchesters. She’d said often that Omega’s weren’t strong enough to be an Alpha and a younger Cas had been confused. Because an Alpha was an Alpha and an Omega was an Omega. How could an Omega simultaneously be an Alpha?

Now he stared at John with sudden wonder and understanding. Her distinctions on the same word had been lost to him as a pup but now it had become clear.

It had been a prejudice, plain and simple. One she’d tried to instill upon him as well. Omega’s were less than Alpha’s, she’d always said. She’d be disappointed in him as much as his brothers were if she were still here.

He was suddenly glad she wasn’t.

Cas hunched in on himself, still not taking part in the gathering, lost in his whirling, confusing thoughts. Parts of it ran so clear, so obvious but it fought with how he’d been and he wasn’t sure what to make of it all. Movement near him caused him to blink, only to find an uncertain Dean standing awkwardly before him, shifting his weight from paw to paw.

“What do you want, Dean?” Cas asked, his usual antagonistic tone gone, replaced by something considerably wearier.

“Are you all right?” Dean asked in concern, edging a little closer, sniffing at the air.

“What do you care?” Cas looked away, suddenly ashamed of himself, of his behavior, of being the one that had broken their friendship all those years ago. He’d always craved it and had only gotten angrier with himself for his weakness, his inability to stop thinking of or missing Dean.

And he was really missing Dean, though the new Alpha wolf was right there in front of him.

Missed the easy friendship they’d once had, their closeness.

And then he wasn’t.

A warm, furred body curled up next to him and Cas whined, nearly collapsing into Dean, into the slightly larger wolf beside him. Dean leaned over and licked Cas’s muzzle briefly before curling further into the Omega, resting his head on Cas’s back.

“It’s okay, Cas, I ain’t mad at ya,” Dean said softly. Somehow, Dean seemed to know everything Cas was thinking, how he was feeling, and Dean…Dean forgave him. Cas allowed himself to relax, eyes closing, relishing the closeness with Dean that he hadn’t let himself have for years. He was glad to be a wolf then, because if he’d been human, he was certain he would have cried in Dean’s arms.

The momentous moment seemed to go unremarked and unnoticed by all but a few. John and Chuck looked over at their sons – John with a proud smile and Chuck in relief.

“Oh, thank the moon,” Chuck breathed out.

John rumbled out his agreement and held back the “I told you so” that threatened to make an appearance.

From that moment on, the two became inseparable at every gathering. Cas’s looks of despair and resignation when it was time to go home got harder and harder to resist, Dean staring at his father with pleading eyes to help until finally John offered to let Cas live with them. “After all, we all know it’ll happen eventually. Why not let Cas live here he’ll thrive instead of his spirit being crushed?” John said to Chuck eventually.

Chuck looked at his youngest son, at how much more relaxed and happy he seemed to be with Dean and finally he gave a terse nod. No one was surprised in the least when the change became official.

And barely anyone was surprised a few years later when Dean and Cas took each other as mates.


End file.
